Name: Cold Roast Leg of Mutton
Ingredients: leg of mutton; veal forcemeat (see recipe for veal forcemeat); 2 onions; 1 bunch of parsley; 2-3 bay leaves; 4-5 carrots; turnips (as many as desired); water or broth (enough to cover the meat)

Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cold Roast Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Trim the large end of the leg to make it flat.
Cut evenly through the joint where it has been carved.
Remove the bone from the fillet and replace it with veal forcemeat.

Cook

Place the meat, bones, knuckle, and trimmings in a large pot.
Cover with water or broth and bring to a boil.
Add onions, parsley, bay leaves, carrots, and turnips.
Simmer gently for about 2 hours.
Thicken the gravy with spices or store-bought sauce before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,842 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton: Forms the main body of the dish and gives the meat and rich flavour to the broth.
Veal forcemeat: Fills the space left by the removed bone, adding moisture and a tender, soft texture.
Onions: Add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they soften during simmering.
Carrots: Add gentle sweetness and body to the broth and gravy.
Turnips: Add mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth and vegetables.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for about 2 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and the broth clear. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and makes the liquid cloudy, so keep the pot at a barely moving simmer.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, veal, parsley, carrot, turnip, meat):

Leekfits better
Parsnipfits better
Shallotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, veal, parsley, carrot, turnip, meat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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Cold Roast Leg of Mutton